FTL

[Arlos]

http://www.ftlgame.com/

This is a surprisingly addictive little game, actually. Basic premise is that you're a lone ship with vital info and you have to make it to your home fleet before the rebel fleet catches you.

The closest game I can think of to it, really, is the REALLY old games like Rogue and Nethack. You start with one wimpy ship, and you have to make it through 7 maps that are randomly set up. Each map has a whole bunch of stars in it, and you jump from star to star, with usually finding an encounter at any given star you jump to. You then use the parts you get from ships you kill (or find randomly) to upgrade your ship, pay for repairs at stars with stores, etc. The thing is, you're on a clock once you're in a sector. By about the time you do your 4th jump or so, the enemy fleet starts to arrive in the sector. Every time you jump, you'll find they have taken over a bigger swath of the area. Don't let them catch up to you. If you do jump to a planet they've absorbed, you have to fight a rather tough ship and you don't get to salvage anything from it.

Once you get to the 8th sector, you get repaired for free and given some free fuel and missiles, and then you have to jump back across the sector to fight the enemy flagship. That fight has 3 phases that you need to do in sequence, without dying, without any chance to hit somewhere to repair your ship. Your crew can repair damaged systems, but for the most part, you can't repair damage to the structure of the ship itself. When that runs out, your ship goes boom.

The kicker is, it's hardcore mode, period. Your ship dies, it's gone. It's start over, pal. They estimate that you'll successfully finish the game maybe 10% of the time, tops.

It's actually one of the first Kickstarter-funded games to actually get released. It's $10, either from their website or on steam.

Here's a youtube review/gameplay sample:


-Arlos

[Drem]

looks like hell but the gameplay is intriguing as shit. might have to get this. good replay value?

[Arlos]

Has been so far. Definitely a strategy to the thing. What to upgrade, when to upgrade it, plus the randomness for what encounters you have, what special events you find, etc. So far I've completed the entire game once. On easy. Like 3 other times I died horribly to phase 2 of the ending Flagship fight, so I was close, but phase 2 of that fight is just pure rape.

Graphics are, as you noticed, crap. Honestly, I couldn't care less. Gameplay is fun and, as noted, incredibly challenging.

And hey, even if you only play for a few weeks, it's only $10. 3 weeks of entertainment for 10 bucks is a pretty good price point...

-Arlos

[Tossica]

Was fun for a few days. Worth the $

[vonkaar]

Bought FTL but haven't played it. Playing the hell out of Endless Space. It's a grea 4x game - exactly what MOO3 should have been. Better than Galactic Civilizations and any of the other pretenders. VERY detailed though, not for a casual strategy gamer. More Civ4 than Civ5. Love it.

I promise I'll get around to playing FTL eventually.

[10sun]

I liked it the most when I mod'd FTL to disable the pursuing fleet.

[Griever]

Bought FTL but haven't played it. Playing the hell out of Endless Space. It's a grea 4x game - exactly what MOO3 should have been. Better than Galactic Civilizations and any of the other pretenders. VERY detailed though, not for a casual strategy gamer. More Civ4 than Civ5. Love it.

I promise I'll get around to playing FTL eventually.

Endless Space is amazing. Super involved, crazy amount of detail and options. I highly recommend it for anyone who loves 4X games.

[Menelvir]

I liked it the most when I mod'd FTL to disable the pursuing fleet.

Ah, a budding young cadet who doesn't believe in the 'no win' scenario, eh?

[Lyion]

Bought FTL but haven't played it. Playing the hell out of Endless Space. It's a grea 4x game - exactly what MOO3 should have been. Better than Galactic Civilizations and any of the other pretenders. VERY detailed though, not for a casual strategy gamer. More Civ4 than Civ5. Love it.

I promise I'll get around to playing FTL eventually.

I picked up Endless Space last time it was dirt cheap on Steam and it didn't do much for me. I liked Sins of a Solar Empire better, but it doesn't do that much for me either.

I wish someone would redesign a new space strategy game instead of adding stuff to the current 4X design which is a tad long in the tooth.

[10sun]

I liked it the most when I mod'd FTL to disable the pursuing fleet.

Ah, a budding young cadet who doesn't believe in the 'no win' scenario, eh?

I played through it a few times vanilla. I just preferred being able to explore each map in its entirety.

[Arlos]

Bought FTL but haven't played it. Playing the hell out of Endless Space. It's a grea 4x game - exactly what MOO3 should have been. Better than Galactic Civilizations and any of the other pretenders. VERY detailed though, not for a casual strategy gamer. More Civ4 than Civ5. Love it.

I promise I'll get around to playing FTL eventually.

I picked up Endless Space last time it was dirt cheap on Steam and it didn't do much for me. I liked Sins of a Solar Empire better, but it doesn't do that much for me either.

I wish someone would redesign a new space strategy game instead of adding stuff to the current 4X design which is a tad long in the tooth.

You know what I want in a space game? A re-do of Wing Commander, with modern graphics. I would play the FUCK out of that game.

-Arlos

[Lyion]

Somewhat different genre, but privateer and freelancer remain my faves with WC very close. I'm hopeful Chris Roberts new game will be good, but it will probably suck.

I will nab FTL next time a steam sale is on....

[Tikker]

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[Arlos]

I did warn you that it's really fucking hard.

So far, I've unlocked every ship except for the Mantis one. Only ever even seen the event once, and I didn't have the crew teleporter and level-2 med bay it requires at the time. Yes, I have the crystal cruiser. Only JUST got it, but it's pretty amusing. Finding it is a cast iron bitch. You not only have to get lucky in hitting the correct sequence of events, you have to do it all before the Rock Homeworld sector, which may not even be IN that game, or might be down a path you didn't go.

I have several of the B-variants too. Just not the Stealth Cruiser, Slug Cruiser, and Crystal cruiser. I've won on normal with every single ship and variant I have.

Some ships are absolute dog vomit. The Engi B-variant, the Stealth Cruiser, and the base Rock cruiser are all just bad. Engi B has a horrible weapon loadout, you start with exactly 1 crew member, and the weapon combo will probably not even get you to sector 3 or 4. Stealth cruiser has NO shields. None. Buying a shield module is 150 scrap. Yeah, stealth is nice, but it's not THAT good. Main Rock variant ONLY has missile weapons. If you have bad luck in random weapon finds or in crap for sale at stores, and you can end up weaponless really fast. That said, the Rock ship is the best one to use to unlock the Crystal cruiser. a) because the starting event might fail for any other ship (Rock ones get a blue option that has 100% success rate), and b) because doing the crystal unlock in the rock A is one of the achievements that will unlock the superior Rock B version.

I think my favorite is either of the Zoltan cruiser variants. The Zoltan shield is seriously OP, especially once you put a stealth system in to delay them getting weapons powered up. The Federation Cruiser is pretty darn nice too.

So far, my #1 top score is 4513 in the Zoltan B variant.
Most Ships Defeated: 38
Most Beacons Explored: 103
Most Scrap Collected: 1951
Most Crew Hired: 13

154 games played, 18 victories.

[Lyion]

Picked up FTL and enjoying it.

I'm not surprised you are having a hard time, Tikker. You are a fucking idiot after all. I'm sure there's a Sonic game on sale, that's more your speed.

[Tikker]

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[Lyion]

Damn, there goes my potential fun for my work day.

I'll have to play this game more as it's really quite fun and challenging, but Civ V Brave New World gameplay seems much slower now and I've been trying to finish my first playthrough with my limited free time, and for some reason SWTOR gave me a bunch of Cartel Points which I've been spending and leveling my Sith Warrior to 50.

The cool thing is I think FTL runs on my Linux server. The crappy thing is it's on the same Steam account. I might try to run it in offline mode there and play it at the same time.

[brinstar]

Sonic game ... more your speed

unintentional pun?

[Tikker]

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[Arlos]

Base Engi ship is pretty decent. (Engi B, though, is fucking awful) The Ion Blast II is one of the best weapons in the game. Get a drone recovery arm and 1 more weapon and you're set all the way through the final battle. as far as offense goes. If you ever want to max some people out for weapon skill, get into a fight with a ship that can't hurt you, target them with the IB2, and just walk away for 20 minutes. Hell, do it with all your crew just in case you lose someone in a random event.

-Arlos

[Tikker]

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[Gaazy]

i may try it if everyone is having such fun w ith it. Arlos you usually dig up fun little games nicely, like World of Tanks. That one was a blast

[Lyion]

Really, this game needs to be on my Ipad. It'd shine there.

[10sun]

Really, this game needs to be on my Ipad. It'd shine there.

Yes. Tablet / phone friendly would be stellar.

[Tikker]

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